Occasion
by EmLocke
Summary: A spark of special occasion was all that she needed. A series of birthdays. Written after 6.08.
1. April 1989 Part I

Disclaimer: I'm unofficial, I don't own Gilmore Girls.  
Written after 6.08. A series of birthdays, starting with Lorelai's 21st. 

**April 1989 Part I**

The photograph that Mia had taken on Lorelai's 21st birthday was so dominated by four-year-old Rory that it could have been a picture of the child's birthday celebration instead of her mother's. Twenty-one candles in a pan of warm brownies on the kitchen counter at the Independence Inn. Mia and the other maids applauded as both Gilmore girls blew out the candles together, their blue eyes lit by the flickering flames.

"Don't forget to make a wish, Mommy!"

"Why don't you do the honors, babe."

"Really?"

"Wish away!"

Mia gave Lorelai the night off and shooed her off to the potting shed where she built a fort on the tiny porch and had a sleepover with her daughter. It was the first warm night of the season and they nestled down in a bed of quilts. Rory gazed dreamily at the string of white Christmas lights that Mia had given her to use for the holidays and then told her to keep. They were draped all along the railing, surrounding the girls with their soft glow.

"Like a fairy home," Rory whispered, awe in her big eyes. "It feels like we're way high up in a tree."

"Maybe we are," Lorelai whispered back.

She lay awake until midnight, watching the stars above her and stroking Rory's silky hair, spread out beside her on the pillow, thinking about the party at the Gilmore mansion that she wasn't missing because it wasn't happening and she wouldn't have wanted it anyway. Sure, she considered herself a connoisseur of puffed pastry hours devours, but it was so much better to eat homemade tater tots and pigs-in-blankets in a faux-feathered tiara rather than salmon puffs in a real one. Real tiaras were uncomfortably heavy. The paper crown that Rory had made for her during arts and crafts hour at pre-school glittered with sequins.

This was enough, she knew, rolling toward Rory and pulling her sleeping daughter into the curve of her body, tucking her droopy limbs in so she could cuddle her close. Certainly not the fanfare she would have once imagined for herself. She'd never expected the day of her 21st birthday to be so very much like the day _before_ her 21st birthday and the day _after_ her 21st birthday. She had woken up, gotten Rory off to pre-school, bussed tables after breakfast, dusted and polished in the library and piano room, picked Rory up from pre-school, shared lunch with her daughter and played Go Fish before starting in on the linens and bed making…

But all this had been punctuated with extra kisses from Rory, a card from the overnight staff, delivered on a breakfast tray brought all the way out to the potting shed, flowers from the grounds guys, and finally, the birthday dinner, made to order, and a gift from Mia, a new copy of the latest Bangles album (she'd worn out her tape after five months of non-stop _Eternal Flame_) and a 24-pack of AA batteries, enough to last her through the summer in the Walkman she wore when tackled the bathrooms after check out. Every pocket change tip had felt like a birthday bonus and _The Birthday Song_ sounded like it had been composed just for her. She felt, for the first time in many years, like a birthday girl, like this was her day and not just an excuse for a party at which she was expected to perform, not celebrate.

Most unusual, of course, was the gift that had arrived by messenger during the mid-morning tea service.

_"L, Your father presented me with these on my twenty-first birthday, just before we were engaged, and I have always intended to give them to you in honor of the same occasion. Emily."_ Her father had added a note after her mother's embossed signature: _"It was lovely to see you at Easter. Bring Rory to visit again soon. RG."_ It was a nice note, she told her reflection as she stood before the lighted mirror in one of the bathrooms upstairs.

She had closed the door and locked it before she allowed herself to lift the strand of pearls from the velvet pillow and lift her own hair from the back of her neck to try them on. She stared at herself for a moment, startled to see a grown-up staring back. A grown-up who went to Yale, or Smith maybe; who played the piano and went to cocktail parties where the bartenders knew 'her drink' but never looked her in the eye. But she had never read the instruction book that came with a borrowed sewing machine. She had never talked down a used car salesman or signed herself up for a yoga class. She had never hung a flowered curtain around a bathtub to keep cool drafts off her daughter's wet skin.

With trembling hands, Lorelai unfastened the necklace and snapped the satin jewelry box shut. She leaned forward toward the mirror, watching herself again as she caught her breath. This woman knew what it was like to be on her own. She had delivered a baby… Lorelai had hummed as she finished wiping down the sink and left the bathroom with the jewelry box tucked inside her bucket of cleaning supplies.

A spark of special occasion was all that she needed. After all, it was her own spark that had gotten her and Rory through these last few years in one piece. This birthday was a momentous occasion disguised as just-another-day, rather than the other way around. And, as Lorelai had learned soon after absconding from her parents' house and striking out on her own, just-another-day was nothing to sneeze at.


	2. April 1989 Part II

Disclaimer: Just a fan, I don't own Gilmore Girls.  
Lorelai's 21st birthday, as it might have been.

**April 1989 Part II**

There were only about three times too many candles on the cake, Lorelai observed from her post by the champagne fountain.

"Lorelai, didn't you see the cake come out? It's time!"

_Oh, that was the cake? I thought someone had ignited themselves as part of the stage show._

Of course she'd seen the cake. The cake had nearly blinded her with its flaming radiance. And now a thunderous round of _The Birthday Song_ threatened her hearing. Emily nearly pulled her wrist out of the socket, yanking her into the center of the expanding circle of guests. _Who knew birthdays were such a hazard?_

Lorelai took a deep breath and leaned forward to blow out the candles and make her wish, maybe I'll get something I actually asked for, but opened her eyes to find that the cake had wheeled out from under her nose to be cut behind the scenes.

"Gracious! What is that?" Emily pointed, horrified, at the scalloped neckline of Lorelai's peach colored cocktail dress.

Lorelai glanced down, just remembering the envelope from Dr. Martin; the corner was peeking out beneath the diamond choker that Emily had fastened too tightly around her throat. She'd slipped in into her dress, too lazy to make yet another trip to the gift table, where she was supposed to display each and every monogrammed envelope presented to her by a stranger throughout the evening. How did they all manage to hand off the concealed check so discreetly while simultaneously drawing the rapt attention of everyone within ten feet? The subtlety was polite, but the conspicuous nature of the envelope ritual was what most of these people had showed up for; watching each other push money around was practically an erotic experience for the Hartford society set. It was like foreplay, but with everyone watching like a haughty crowd of overdressed swingers. Come to think of it, Dr. Martin and his latest female companion had vanished soon after the fine gentleman had given Lorelai his gift, and he'd had a sort of strange glint in his eyes…Lorelai relished the idea of someone, other than herself, caught necking, as her father would say, on the settee in the library.

She handed the envelope off to her mother with an indifferent shrug. Emily glowered and stormed off, ordering her daughter to eat some cake in a tone that sounded more like _Choke on it._

"Hey, birthday girl," Christopher sidled up to her from behind, slipping an arm around her waist and spinning her toward him, drawing her into a corner. "Sorry, I'm late. But I brought you something." He held up a silver flask, not at all unlike the silver flasks that probably lay on beds of velvet in the gift boxes on the table, engraved with her name or initials or birth date. Her father's business partners attempt to be tongue-in-cheek for the twenty-one-year-old's birthday. Well, with one tiny difference. Rows of pink plastic sequins glued in the shape of a heart on each side. _Hand-made for me_, Lorelai thought, taking it from Chris' hands, _and booze included_. She took a grateful sip, and then met her boyfriend's lips with her own, tasting cigarettes and smelling wet spring air from outside.

"Hey, what's the matter?" he asked sweetly. She just shook her head and slipped her hand into his, leading him off toward the library.


	3. February 1963

Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls

Emily at twenty-one.

**February 1963**

"Did I order ten trays of salmon puffs?"

"No, ma'am."

"But I see ten trays of salmon puffs!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I ordered eight trays and I see ten trays. Do you see ten trays?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Fix it." Lydia Bentley turned on her heel and marched out of the kitchen to check on the flowers being arranged in the hall. Her daughter, Emily Bentley, in whose honor the birthday party at the West Birch Hotel was bring held, entered from the parlor, where the six piece orchestra band was tuning up.

"That bass is far too large," she was saying over her shoulder, "if there is any way to do without it, or at least disguise it…I do not want it in sight from the dance floor!" She let the door slam behind her. "Unsightly hunk of wood," she muttered to herself. She was momentarily distracted from her critique of classical instruments by a waiter carrying a tray of salmon puffs toward the garbage. "What are you doing?" she demanded. "There are supposed to be ten trays of those salmon puffs."

"No, miss," the waiter shook his head. Emily was incredulous.

"No? Did you say no?"

"Yes, miss."

"Unbelievable…"

"Your mother, miss, -"

"My mother doesn't know a thing about salmon puffs. I added two trays to the order of eight. Two and eight is ten. Can you do simple math?"

"Yes, miss."

"Well," Emily oozed, "That's excellent."

"Miss Emily," called an attendant dressed in white, entering from the hallway, "Miss Celine is ready to dress you."

"Finally. Is the stylist here?"

"Yes, miss, they are waiting for you upstairs."

"I'm coming." She walked off even as she held out the tray to the waiter. She dropped it without even looking over her shoulder. The waiter caught it in midair and looked up to see Lydia entering the room again, receiving a kiss from her daughter as the passed each other in the doorway, then surveyed the room, looking the staff and the food over once again.

"Oh, good, just dispose of these." Lydia took the waiter by the shoulders and turned him toward the garbage.

"Yes, ma'am." He held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself as the salmon puffs spilled off the tray and hit the bottom of the trash can.

**Later, the party underway…**

Having greeted a long line of guests, Emily stood, poised in the hall, watching everyone mingle and waiting for the right moment to flow into the crowd herself.

"Well, there's the birthday girl!"

"Richard!" Emily very nearly flung her arms around her beau, and then kissed him chastely on the cheek. "You're late," she informed him, stepping back.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he told her, his cheer not at all phased by her haughty exterior. "I just got in from New Haven. Let me tell you, the train seems to go even slower than usual when I'm on my way to see you." Emily smiled up at him adoringly.

"Well, I'm glad you're here. Come, mother will want to look you over," she began to lead him off into the crowd."

"Wait, wait, first thing's first. Your left hand, please."

"What?"

"Left hand out and close your eyes."

"Richard, I told you -" Emily protested, even as she closed her eyes and thrust her hand forward, shifting to stomp her foot with a very ladylike huff.

"Happy birthday, Emily." Her eyes shot open when she felt his fingers around her wrist. He slipped a corsage of pink rosebuds over her extended fingers. "I know you want to wait. Our engagement shouldn't overshadow your birthday," he said with a smile and a warm wink, knowing he had tricked her to expect an engagement ring on her hand instead of flowers. Emily reddened a little at her hasty assumption.

"It wouldn't be proper," she said, fingering the pearled band around her wrist. The cool fragrance of the fresh flowers wafted around them.

"You're very right, my dear. The engagement will be occasion enough all on its own. But in the meantime, you need a 'proper' birthday gift. Turn, please." This time, Emily silently obeyed, thrilled a little as Richard put his arms around her from behind, leaning forward to whisper in her ear as he displayed an open jewelry box before her eyes.

"Oh, Richard, I love you, too." He withdrew momentarily to remove the necklace from their velvet bed as she waited, breathless, then he encircled her in his arms again to fasten the string of pearls around her neck.

"Beautiful," he murmured. He turned her to face him again and lifted her hand to his lips.

"Thank you," she answered, batting her eyelashes demurely. Music swelled in the ballroom and Richard raised his eyebrows in an invitation. Emily nodded and he led her to the dance floor. "Richard?" she said with an alluring smile as they stepped forward and back together.

"Yes, Emily?"

"Let's not wait too long." He gave her a smug smile and spun her out and back in, holding her close to him.


	4. October 1989

Disclaimer: I just really, really like the show!

Rory turns five.

**--- **

**October 1989**

"There are just sixteen kids in the class," Lorelai said, trying to make sixteen sound like not quite so many. "Little kids, too, so they don't eat much."

"I don't think we can do cookies," said the chef, a tall man with a tall hat that covered his bald head. He was turned away from her, slicing apples for pie and she couldn't see his face, so she leveled her gaze with the back of his collar, giving it her best persuasive stare; she'd been warming it up on her way down to the kitchen and she didn't want a good persuasive stare to go to waste.

"Oh, well, it was worth asking…" Lorelai backed toward the door, trying to ignore the churning in her stomach, all that pride she swallowed because she thought it was worth asking.

"Cookies aren't right for a birthday; unless that's what she wants." She froze with her hand on the doorknob as the chef turned around, wiped his hands on a towel and grabbed a notepad and a pen from his desk. "Wouldn't she rather have cupcakes?"

"Cupcakes?"

"Yeah, that's what my daughter wanted to bring in for her class. Does Rory like cupcakes?" He looked up at her, the young maid with the little girl a little younger than his daughter. They lived in the potting shed out back and Mia said not to ask questions, said she would take care of them even when he brought some of his daughter's outgrown clothes in to give to them, just in case.

"Um, Rory loves cupcakes." The chef smiled.

"Good. Cupcakes it is. Chocolate?" Lorelai nodded. "And how about frosting? What's her favorite color?"

"Oh, you know, whatever you have is fine," Lorelai stuttered, unable to meet his eyes.

"She must have a favorite color," he urged her on with his pen, ready to write down the cupcake order. "Pink? Blue?"

"Pink. She likes pink and yellow."

"Ahh, perfect." He scribbled on the notepad, then tore off a sheet and stuck it to the bulletin board. "I'll have two dozen cupcakes ready Wednesday morning. You can pick them up when you take Rory to school."

"That's great, but two dozen's too many, there are only sixteen kids." The chef shook his head and scooped sliced apples off the butcher block and arranged them in a large pie plate.

"Plus the teacher, plus the birthday girl's mom," Lorelai grinned, realizing how long it had been since she'd licked the frosting off the top of a cupcake. "Plus, the birthday girl gets to eat two. I think that's the standard Kindergarten rule."

"I think I read that in the PTA Handbook. How old's your daughter?"

"Caitlin's in second grade now, but I doubt hot pink sprinkles have gone out of style."

"I can say with authority that hot pink sprinkles are still very much en vogue. Thanks." The chef shook his head, _it's nothing_, as he drizzled cinnamon syrup over the apples in the pie crust. "Really,_really_, thank you."

On Wednesday morning, Lorelai crept toward her daughter, still sleeping in their bed big enough for two. She had wrapped the gift in the ivory tissue paper that came folded up in her starched uniform when the dry cleaner's dropped it off every week.

"Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday…" she sang softly.

"Mom?" Rory unwound her arms from the soft bear she cuddled and rubbed her eyes.

"Today's the day, Rory Gilmore. You are five years old."

"I know, Mom."

"Well, just in case you'd forgotten, this is for you." Lorelai placed the present on her daughter's tummy.

"Now?"

"Now. Right now, at 4:03 in the morning, precisely, exactly on the moment you turn five. Open it!" Rory sat up in bed and reached for the gift, pulling the delicate tissue away, layer by layer. "Hurry!" Lorelai urged, though she knew that Rory would treat this task with the same reverent concentration as everything else she did. "Seriously, or you'll have to count this toward your sixth birthday," she teased, though she marveled at her daughter's innate patience.

"S…st…" Rory tried to sound out the title of the book.

"Stuart…"

"Stuart…Little. _Stuart Little_!"

"That's right, _Stuart Little_, by E.B. White," Lorelai said, slipping the book from Rory's fingers and letting the cover fall forward in her hands. _"A story about a very special little mouse for my very special little girl,"_ she read the inscription that she had printed on the title page. Rory craned forward to see for herself. Her face shone in the moonlit room when she beamed at her mother.

"You wrote that!"

"I did, I wrote it just for you. Right at the front, so even though it's not part of the story, it's the beginning of this book. This book is all yours to read over and over again and every time you start at the beginning, you start with this note from your mom."

"I don't think you're supposed to write in books," Rory said gravely.

"It's okay to write notes in the front when the book's a present for someone you love. It's called an inscription. It makes a book one of a kind."

"Okay. I like it, Mom."

"Good. Back to sleep?"

"Will you read me a little, first?"

"We've got a big birthday day ahead of us, we need our beauty sleep."

"Just a little?" Rory held up two fingertips squeezed together. "Please, Mom? It's my present."

"That's a very good point. Just a little. Ready?" Lorelai tucked the covers around them and Rory squeezed her bear under her chin. "Okay. '_When Mrs. Fredrick C. Little's second son arri-_'"

"Wait, you didn't start at the beginning." Lorelai smiled down at her daughter and snuggled a little closer as she started over again.

"_'A story about a very special little mouse for my very special little girl.' 'When Mrs. Fredrick C. Little's second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse.'_"

---


	5. November 1988

Disclaimer: I'm just a fan, I don't own Gilmore Girls.

Christopher rings in twenty-one years.

**--- **

**November 1988**

"Happy birthday, Lor!"

"It's not my birthday, Christopher," she snarled into the phone, her voice low as she pulled the receiver out the front door, as far as the cord would allow.

"I know, I know, but somebody's gotta say 'Happy birthday!' It's supposed to be your line, 'cause it's my birthday, but you weren't saying anything, so I jumped in."

"Well, your performance was stellar. I was trying not to wake Rory."

"Hey, what's the matter?" Chris sounded more offended than concerned about her chilly demeanor, but maybe she just couldn't hear him right over the din of the crowd in whatever bar he was calling from.

"It's almost midnight."

"I know, I had to call before the day was officially over. I know you can't make long distance calls from where you're at and I realized that's probably why I hadn't heard from you, so I'd figured I'd call so you could wish me a 'happ-'"

"I mean, it's almost midnight and Rory is asleep. I was asleep."

"Lor, babe, I'm sorry, I totally forgot about your early mornings."

"And about your sleeping daughter?"

"Well, is she awake now? I wanted to talk to her! Tell her 'happy birthday,' too."

"Aww, that's so sweet. And you're only belated by a whole month."

"Hey, I sent a card," Chris retorted, speaking directly into the pay phone for the first time, and gruffly. She could hear the familiar drunken lilt in his S's.

"Yeah, thank Barbie for her birthday wishes, too. Chris, you know Rory has no interest in those toys, and even if she did, she can't…I can't buy them for her!"

"That's why I got her one!"

"Yeah, okay Chris, I gotta go," Lorelai unfolded herself from the lawn chair beside the front door of the potting shed.

"Wait, wait, oh, come on, Lorelai! I'm sorry, okay? It's my 21st birthday and I just wanted to talk to you. I just really, really wanted to talk to my best friend."

"Hayden, you ready for number seventeen? We gotta get to twenty-one, man, or your birthday won't count!" An equally drunken, but unfamiliar voice nearly deafened Lorelai when some guy leaned too close to the phone. She heard Chris telling him to go order the shots and then he was speaking right into the receiver again, clearer, gentler this time.

"Lor? You there?" _Sounds like his best friend is the guy getting shots at the bar_, she thought, yanking the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her hands, which felt raw in the wintry night air.

"I'm here," she sighed, leaning against the door jamb.

"You are, you know."

"What?"

"My best friend. You are my best friend. It wouldn't have felt like my birthday if I didn't get to hear your voice." Lorelai slid down to rest on her heels, supported by the little shed where she had lived now, for almost three years, with her daughter. She laid her thumb over the lever on the phone that would disconnect the call, ready to depress it.

"Happy birthday, Chris. Goodnight."

---


	6. April 1989 Part III

Disclaimer: I'm unofficial, I don't own Gilmore Girls.

A glimpse at another might-have-been birthday for Lorelai.

**--- **

**April 1989 Part III**

If one more person asked about the wedding, Lorelai swore she would open her mouth beneath the spout on the champagne fountain and drink it dry.

"Where _is_ that Christopher?" the woman in the burgundy twin set had asked.

"Oh, so _sweet_ of you to ask! He's working on a secret project upstairs…" she baited Twin Set like a shark.

"A secret project, hmm?" Yup, the pearls could never resist a little gossip.

"Don't tell anyone, but Christopher is a novelist. He writes under a penname – you've read Danielle Steel, haven't you?" Lorelai nodded suggestively, showing off her million dollar smile.

"Steel…I don't believe I've read anything…oh, excuse me, I need to catch up with…happy birthday, dear." Twin Set vanished and Lorelai was left alone again. So far, she had Christopher writing romance novels, cleaning up after the Exxon-Valdez in Alaska, working as an extra in the _Back to the Future_ sequel, and doing research for his thesis on cold fusion.

Only she knew that Chris was really just hiding out by the mini-bar in his dorm room at Princeton. He'd been coming home to visit less and less as his graduation approached. He was starting to face the impending reality of the plan their families had devised almost five years ago: Lorelai would finish high school and live at home with the baby, Chris would go on to Princeton, and they would be married as soon as he graduated and took his corner office in at Richard's insurance firm.

"Lorelai, didn't you see the cake come out? It's time!"

Her brooding was interrupted when her mother yanked at her arm and a thunderous round of _The Birthday Song_ struck up in the parlor, threatening her hearing. Lorelai closed her eyes, took a deep breath and leaned forward to blow out the candles and make her wish. The cake was whisked out from under her nose to be cut behind the scenes, and Lorelai waited patiently, her hands clasped neatly beneath her ribs, ready to take the inaugural bite before her adoringly indifferent audience.

Vanilla Crème. To match the pearl motif, Lorelai guessed. She would have asked for chocolate, but she ate daintily, watching as everyone else was served. When the guests had been sufficiently distracted by the delicacy of the frosting and occupied themselves in complimenting the china pattern and asking for the recipe, Lorelai lay her fork down on her plate, gathered the folds of her skirt in her free hand to muffle its rustle, and tip-toed up the grand staircase.

At the end of the hallway, Rory's bedroom door was closed, but a faint light glowed from beneath it. Lorelai didn't bother knocking. The little face looked up from her picture book and broke into a grin when she slipped into the room, closing the door softly behind her.

"Mom!" Rory whispered, lifting herself up off her stomach and making room on the satiny bed. Lorelai tucked herself in, kicking off her heels and curling her knees toward her daughter. "How's the party?" Rory asked excitedly.

"I brought you a taste," Lorelai said, urging the plate and fork into Rory's hands.

"I already brushed my teeth!" she protested.

"Just eat the cake! It's special toothpaste frosting."

"Mom!" Rory protested even as she took a bite. "Yum. Want some more?" Lorelai shook her head.

"That's your piece. How's your book?"

"It's just _Cinderella_," Rory said, licking between the tines of her fork. Lorelai flipped through the pages of the familiar story.

"Pretty," she said, pausing at a picture of Cinderella at the ball.

"Pretty dress. Is this what your party is like?" Lorelai smiled. Let Rory believe in the fairy tale.

"A little bit."

"Dad would have to be here. To be your prince!" For a moment, Lorelai couldn't take her eyes off the cartoon couple waltzing in the story in front of her.

"Your dad would look pretty silly in those gold pants, though," she pointed out, closing the book and putting her arms around Rory.

"Dad likes to wear that old jacket," Rory said, wrinkling her nose as she thought of the rough, torn leather that scratched her face and smelled like her grandfather's office after he'd been smoking cigars with a client. Lorelai kissed Rory's hair as she gazed through the lace curtains and out the window.

"Mm-hmmm."

"Mom?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you like your birthday?" Lorelai squeezed a little tighter.

"It was a nice day. This is the best part."

"Good. Mom?"

"Yes, go and brush your teeth again." Lorelai took the plate and set it aside as Rory slid off the bed and scampered toward her bathroom. She paused at the door to turn around, a hopeful look on her porcelain features.

"Then will you read to me a little?" Lorelai could hear music swell downstairs.

"Of course, babe."

---


	7. June 2007

Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls, just writing for fun!

Just a day, always worth celebrating. This is the fluffy chapter!

**--- **

**June 2007**

When the summer sunlight poured across her face, Lorelai sought out Luke's form beside her with her left foot. As clouds of deep sleep drifted away, she realized that the tangle of sheets was empty and she opened her eyes and lifted her head from its hollow in her pillow.

"Morning." She sat up and pushed unruly curls off of her face. Luke was crouched on the edge of the rocking chair, peering down into the bassinette. Paul Anka lay at his feet and Luke was scratching thoroughly behind his ears with one hand, but his peaceful gaze was riveted on his sleeping daughter, his head cocked softly to one side as he watched her in wonder.

"Morning," he answered, glancing over at her with warm eyes and then returning his attention to the baby.

"It's early."

"I heard her gurgling in her sleep. She must have been dreaming," he whispered.

"She made it through the night."

"I can't believe it. She woke up once but I rocked her a little and she drifted off. You were out cold."

"She just needed her dad."

"She probably would have been fine on her own," he said, but he blushed.

"That's my big girl. It's kinda sad, don't you think?" Lorelai said, crawling out of bed and tip-toeing toward the rocker and cradle.

"Kinda sad that you got more than four straight hours of sleep?"

"You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean."

"She's growing up." She stood behind him, looking down at the sleeping baby over his shoulder. She slipped her arms around his neck and ran her hands down his bare chest. He stroked the back of her hands with his fingers, went on scratching behind Paul Anka's ears with his free hand.

"She's twenty-one days old."

"But it feels like she's been here longer than that. If she feels this old at twenty-one days, think about what it will be like when she turns twenty-one."

"She's still new," he said, never taking his eyes off the baby. Lorelai beamed.

"You are so gaga for her right now!" Luke just shrugged. "Pretty soon you'll be staying up nights waiting for her to get home from a date with a boy in a leather jacket instead of listening to her gurgle in her sleep." Luke reached behind him, glided one arm around Lorelai's waist and pulled her down into his lap, fitting her back against his chest and nuzzling her hair.

"We've got time."

"She's still our baby." Luke nodded, kissed Lorelai on the cheek and closed his eyes, enjoying the warm morning breeze through the open window. "When they're small like this, every little part of them is such a perfect fit. Like, look at that tiny thumb. It's exactly the right size for a little person with tiny ears and a tiny nose, and tiny feet…"

"You just want to pick her up, don't you?" Luke said with a knowing smile. Lorelai giggled and gave him a giddy, lopsided shrug.

"I just don't want to miss this moment with her," she answered quietly.

"Well, go on," Luke urged.

"Ha! I knew you couldn't resist." Lorelai bent forward and rubbed the baby's tummy. "Good morning, Lila," she murmured. "Happy twenty-one-day birthday." She scooped her daughter into her arms and leaned back into Luke's chest. "Hey, twenty-one, you think we should spike her formula or something?"

"No."

"Take her to Atlantic City?"

"Let's take her to the park."

"To play craps on the blacktop with those old guys?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what we'll do at the park…"

---


	8. October 2005

Disclaimer: I disclaim them, I'm just writing for fun!

Luke's perspective on Rory's twenty-first birthday, before the party.

**--- **

**October 2005**

**6.07 - Hanging up the phone after Rory's call…**

_"Yeah, but she called."_

It took just a moment for the shock of Rory's near tantrum to wear off the reason for Lorelai's dreamy expression to set in. Rory had _called_. Luke didn't know exactly what had transpired between the girls at their last meeting; if they had agreed mutually not to speak or if they had engaged each other in an unspoken battle of resistance to see who would give in and call the other first. Lorelai's expression hinted that she certainly surprised to hear from her daughter. If she felt any victory, it was only in knowing that a part of Rory still belonged to her here in Stars Hollow, teat the invitation was extended by Rory herself, otherwise she wouldn't have bothered with following up.

For his own part, Luke couldn't deny the sense of satisfaction that he felt (if the girls were going to keep him in the middle, there was no way he could get out of it.) He clapped his hands together, smiling, and asked Lorelai if she still wanted that cherry. She snapped out of her stunned reverie and looked up at him catching a glint of smugness in his eyes. She burst into giggles and nodded furiously. She watched him drop two long-stemmed cherries into her whipped cream, her long fingers delicately covering her trembling lips. He thought he saw a certain shine in her eyes, but she dug into her pancakes with a smile.

**Days later, Luke's apartment, getting ready for the party…**

Luke straightened out the tails of his tie, heaving a sigh at his reflection in the mirror. He reminded himself for the hundredth time that, as much as he felt like he was getting ready to attend his own wake, hosted spitefully by an immortal Emily Gilmore, it was really Rory's birthday. That's why it mattered that he was wearing a suit. He would gladly set aside his standard dress code to celebrate with Rory on her special night.

Luke imagined her, glowing and laughing, wearing a feathered tiara. But, no. That Rory belonged in the town square gazebo. She didn't match at all in the Gilmore parlor setting. He shook his head, wiped the tiara from his image, and sighed. He just wanted to picture something, just one thing that he could count on, something to get him through the length of an evening when he didn't know what to expect.

Chocolate boxes. Rory had nearly promised upon her own life that Lorelai would be provided with a chocolate box if she chose to attend the party, and a Gilmore never goes back on a chocolate promise. He could count on chocolate. Chocolate was birthday party food. Chocolate boxes…well, he wasn't entirely sure what to expect from a chocolate box. He imagined boxes with walls delicately constructed of dark chocolate with a creamy sheen, stacked in a graceful tower on a silver tray, in-laid with cream-colored bows of spun sugar. He turned the confection over and over again in his mind's eye and wondered, _how would one consume a chocolate box?_

The idea of the box reminded him that birthday parties usually meant birthday gifts. He thought of the coffee cakes and balloons that he had presented to Rory over the years, of the plastic bags of ice he'd brought to her sixteenth birthday because he knew it was the last thing that Lorelai would think to provide herself and he hadn't wanted to show up with nothing, his hands in his pockets, awkwardly belying how out of place he would have felt. He figured he could use a gift to get him through the door in this case, too.

But he wanted to bring something special. He had the feeling that ice would be taken care of. Cake, too, unless Rory was meant to blow out candles stuck in a chocolate box. What could he, Luke Danes, Rory's future step-father and, arguably, her number-two fan, bring for her birthday? What could he offer that Lorelai would not provide?

He considered calling Lorelai to ask for a suggestion. But there would hardly be time to stop and pick something up on the way, and he didn't want to just grab something in the pre-packaged aisle at Sephora (_didn't particularly want to go near a Sephora, actually…_).

Even as he headed over to the hutch and began sifting through the top drawer, he heard Lorelai cajoling, "Just sign my card, this can be from both of us." Obviously, Rory would never buy that, his scrawl under Lorelai's on a box from Urban Outfitters or some other company with a flashy website that Lorelai browsed when she was too lazy to actually visit the store. His name, succinctly, under Lorelai's loopy signature and some goofy, loquacious message full of Gilmore-speake.

Or…wait.

What would Lorelai write in this card? What would she say when, for months, since long before the blow-out, really, she had been wondering if she and Rory still spoke the same language at all? What would she want to write? What would she resist writing? He couldn't imagine Lorelai just leaving a card blank, though, either. She usually scribbled right over the canned Hallmark message, or annotated it in mockery. Usually, she shared the punch line with everyone but the intended recipient before sealing the envelope, unable to contain her own amusement until the card was delivered, but she hadn't mentioned a ridiculous card to him in any of their discussions leading up to the evening and the party. In fact, she hadn't mentioned a gift at all.

Lorelai wouldn't…no. Of course she would bring a gift for Rory. But maybe she just hadn't been able to…if she'd been too worried to think of something…

He dug a little deeper in the drawer until he found the old velvet box. Lorelai'd be furious, he thought as he slipped it down into his jacket pocket, when she found out that he had doubted her sentimentality or that he had gone against her choice to hold back on the presents. But if Luke knew Lorelai, and he did, he was sure, she would come around, appreciate the gesture, no matter what happened tonight. In the end, she'd want her daughter to have something, and she'd still be gushing about her sweet fiancé's gift to her daughter at other birthday parties for years down the road…

Luke smoothed his tie and grabbed the keys, locked up the apartment for the night and headed out to pick up Lorelai.

**In the truck, on the way to the party…**

"What's in the box?"

"Rory's birthday present."

"Oh."

"Oh? What does that mean?"

"What? Nothing."

"You thought I wouldn't bring anything? Of course I'm bringing a gift. It's a birthday party, that's what you do, you bring a gift."

"Okay."

"She's my daughter. I mean, biologically, anyway, I don't know when my daughter's heart froze up and her brain got sucked up by a pod person, but somewhere in there, she's still my kid. It's in the eyes. You've seen the eyes, Luke."

"I've seen the eyes. What'd you get her?"

"A pack of Hello Kitty playing cards."

"And?"

"_Ocean's 11_ on DVD. For the Vegas."

"Yeah, I got that."

"Well, I still have to check on the movie references with you sometimes."

"And I appreciate that. What else?"

"Nothing else. Just…just an old picture."

"Of her?"

"Of both of us. On my 21st birthday. We were still living at the inn then."

"I've never seen that picture."

"I only have one copy. I guess I've been saving it for something."

"Seems like the right occasion."

"Maybe. Yeah." Lorelai gave him a small smile, looking more sure. "It's the perfect occasion."

_--- _

_Happy Birthday to you..._

_The End._

_--- _


End file.
